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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27624614">Unhallowed Arts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForASecondThereWedWon/pseuds/ForASecondThereWedWon'>ForASecondThereWedWon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Spidey-shots, Spidey-shots, now they're done, thanks a lot <3 [59]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftercare, Banter, Bisexual Brad Davis, Bisexual Peter Parker, Blow Jobs, Co-workers to lovers, Cunnilingus, Dry Humping, Eye Sex, F/M, Face-Sitting, Finger Sucking, First Meetings, Foreplay, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, Heavy Petting, Jealousy, M/M, Multi, POV Michelle Jones, Peter Parker is a thot, Power Dynamics, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Strangers to Lovers, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, Unrequited Crush, Vaginal Fingering, banter ABOUT banter, intoxicated decision-making</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:48:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,074</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27624614</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForASecondThereWedWon/pseuds/ForASecondThereWedWon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>What’s the compromise between abruptly shutting this down (her sex drive weeps) and getting in bed with a guy who will make the experience too emotionally intense?</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Have you ever had a threesome?” Michelle blurts.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“…What? No.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Neither have I. But I’ve been, um, wanting to try it.”</i>
</p><p>Have you? <i>she demands of herself, wiping a damp palm on her jeans.</i></p><p>
  <i>“You, me, and someone else?” Brad’s eyebrows are very high on his forehead. “That’s a lot of bodies, uh, coming together.”</i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brad Davis/Michelle Jones, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker/Brad Davis, Peter Parker/Brad Davis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Spidey-shots, Spidey-shots, now they're done, thanks a lot <3 [59]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1368034</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>91</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Peter Parker's Thotumn 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Unhallowed Arts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My third and final fic for Thotumn, organized by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideysmjs/pseuds/spideysmjs">spideysmjs</a>!</p><p>Today's prompt is <b>Threesome</b>, but I'm also using these earlier Thotumn prompts: <b>Semi-Public</b>, <b>Face-Sitting</b>, and <b>"Don't Be Gentle."</b></p><p>Title from a line in Mary Shelley's <i>Frankenstein</i>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Brad Davis has a Mary Shelley mug. He used to drink from it—coffee he brought to work in a thermos from home, which smelled so delicious that Michelle would go out of her way to inhale it over his shoulder, pretending to let him show her something on his monitor—until the mug cracked and he switched to using it to house typical office junk. She asked him about the mug exactly once, fearing it was bait to intrigue a certain kind of person, to make him seem like a certain kind of person himself. But he surprised her. Turns out he’s not a douche (or at least not a douche who lures women in with female authors of historical significance), just a genuine Shelley fan.</p><p>He’s not many things Michelle initially assumed him to be, striking them off a mental list over the months they’ve worked together: not a guy who takes the last free seat at the table during a team meeting, not a guy who checks out his own reflection on his black phone screen, not a guy who wears sturdy hiking boots for show. When they troop out to conduct surveys on behalf of the conservation initiative they work for, Brad scrambles up the side of eroding banks and squelches into marshland until water soaks his socks and surface residue clings to his leg hair.</p><p>Brad’s not pushy, though she’s well aware that he’s been watching her as long as she’s been watching him.</p><p>Early on into them working together, she fell into his arms. Literally fell. The team encouraged Michelle to wait for the second truck, the one bringing the ladder, but she got stubborn and climbed the tree to check the bat box the old-fashioned way. Unfortunately, some of the branches were dead and hollow inside, but Brad caught her when she dropped eight feet. And then flirted with her before she could catch her breath. She had some less friendly words for him in return. The first time he surprised her was when he immediately respected her clear boundaries and backed off. They’ve learned to work easily with each other and drink together in the same booth when people from the initiative hit the bar—on evenings they don’t smell too much like they spent the day in Mother Nature’s armpit. They’re friendly, could almost be friends, except that she’s incredibly conscious of his persistent attraction to her, even if he doesn’t do anything about it because he’s not a douche. It’s a knowledge Michelle simply lives with.</p><p>But there have been an awful lot of evenings lately of smelling like whatever swamp she waded into during the day, of either going straight home to shower the stench away (thank fuck for rent with utilities included), or hunching over her laptop as she tries to get a grant application finished before a midnight submission deadline. Nobody she works with is holding their breath for the day the government decides it should just <em>give</em> them the money to protect local habitats without making them prove themselves over and over and compete against other worthy environmental projects for the funds. So, Michelle works, and she wades, and she loses many of the evenings she could be out getting laid.</p><p>On a regular they-better-pay-us-for-the-overtime evening and not a marshy/swampy/boggy one, she’s comfortably stretched out in a booth with Brad across the table. Two of their colleagues were here a minute ago, but they got up to… go to the bathroom? Grab another round? That’s a little hazy, but Michelle can feel something becoming clearer to her. Observing her own hand as she twirls the base of her latest empty across the tabletop, she asks a question.</p><p>“You like Mary Shelley, right?”</p><p>Brad, glassy-eyed but still trying to look professional with the way he has his hands folded on the surface in front of him, smiles at her. She can feel it.</p><p>“Yes. Her creativity was astounding. If I were in the running for the Miss Universe pageant—”</p><p>Michelle jerks her chin back and looks up to make a face at him.</p><p>“—and they asked me what historical figure I would most like to have dinner with, I would say Mary Shelley. Hands down.”</p><p>“Cool story, bro. Hey, Brad?”</p><p>“Mhmm.”</p><p>She can tell by his drifting gaze and expression of introspection that he’s planning out his pageant answers.</p><p>“Do you still want to sleep with me?”</p><p>That focuses his attention. He laughs uncomfortably.</p><p>“Why… why would you think that?”</p><p>“Oh, so, what’s your limit?” Michelle presses, slightly snide with the alcohol in her bloodstream. “You’re not interested in going past holding hands? Making out for no more than five minutes? Because you obviously want something,” she rambles on. “You look at me, I know you do.”</p><p>“This isn’t just an idle question, is it?” Brad asks.</p><p>He leans forward to look at her as carefully as his tipsiness will allow. As if he already knows the answer. Their thought patterns are very similar, she’s found. It’s why they’re effective at work and why it’s possible to fall into a discussion on books during their overlapping lunch hours. She likes him—not a <em>lot</em>, but enough to have started this conversation. She stares back at him.</p><p>“I wouldn’t say no to it,” he offers quietly, though the bar is crowded tonight and Michelle doubts their words are traveling beyond the booth.</p><p>Now, Brad’s looking at her in a way that makes her realize, all this time, he’s <em>barely</em> been looking at her. With the permission to think of her in this way, there’s a clear desire there, a gaze that slips again and again to her mouth. Huh. Ok. Maybe she didn’t completely think this whim through before sharing it with him. She can’t fuck <em>that</em> Brad. She’s been imagining the drinking companion, the nice forearms he reveals when he literally rolls up his sleeves in the field, the man who will always be a little on her nerves for flirting with her as he cradled her against him. Someone whose world she could casually rock with the assurance that they both have enough self-confidence to carry on afterwards without getting clingy or feeling disposed of.</p><p>What’s the compromise between abruptly shutting this down (her sex drive weeps) and getting in bed with a guy who will make the experience too emotionally intense?</p><p>“Have you ever had a threesome?” Michelle blurts.</p><p>“…What? No.”</p><p>“Neither have I. But I’ve been, um, wanting to try it.”</p><p><em>Have you?</em> she demands of herself, wiping a damp palm on her jeans.</p><p>“You, me, and someone else?” Brad’s eyebrows are very high on his forehead. “That’s a lot of bodies, uh, coming together.”</p><p>“Come on, Brad—”</p><p>“‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’” he guesses.</p><p>“I was <em>going</em> to say, I thought you loved <em>Frankenstein</em>.”</p><p>She rounds her impulsive invitation off with a smile.</p>
<hr/><p>Michelle doesn’t volunteer to select the third person. When she considers which of her friends and acquaintances she’d be comfortable having sex with, well, there’s Brad. That already hasn’t gone the way she predicted. Everyone else she’s close to either feels like family, is in a monogamous relationship, or just isn’t attractive to her in that way. She consoles herself over putting the choice of their third into Brad’s hands with the thought that he seems like he’d be the most suspect person in a friend group (yes, they get along, but there’s something sleazy about the way he tries too hard), so whoever he asks can only be more tolerable than him.</p><p>“So, a buddy of mine said he’d be into it,” Brad says as she’s passing his desk one day. Michelle stops dead and he swivels in his chair, drumming his fingers on the armrest.</p><p>“You’re talking about…”</p><p>“Yeah.” He darts a look around, then hits her with a conspiratorial smile.</p><p>“Oh. Ok. Good. Turtles,” she says more loudly to cover for them. Her gaze darts to the nearest desk, but Jocelyn’s wearing headphones and bobbing her head as she populates a spreadsheet. Reassured, Michelle takes a step towards Brad and lowers her voice again. “What’s his name? How do you know him?”</p><p>“His name’s Peter. We play soccer together.”</p><p>“How the hell do you have time to participate in organized sports?”</p><p>“That’s what I do while you’re working your way through the <em>New York Times</em> Best Seller list,” Brad jokes.</p><p>“Fair. But who is this guy?”</p><p>“You want his résumé?”</p><p>“No, I want to know he’s not going to give me an STI or try anything freaky.”</p><p>“Freaky,” he echoes. “As opposed to threesomes, which are an incredibly common thing to do with your boyfriend.”</p><p>“Or your friend from work,” Michelle retorts, to keep things very clear. Brad appears fleetingly wounded. Too bad. He can say no any time, but it’s obvious that he’d rather see her naked in a threesome than the alternative. Which is never.</p><p>“Yeah, of course. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about Peter. He’s responsible, he’s single, he was raised by his aunt and they’re still really close. She comes to all our games.” He lets out a derisive sort of laugh and Michelle narrows her eyes at him.</p><p>“That’s sweet.”</p><p>“I guess,” he concedes.</p><p>“Why’s he single?” she asks, rapid-fire.</p><p>“I don’t know, because he wants to be?”</p><p>“‘Wants to be’ like he’s emotionally stable and waiting for the right person to come along or ‘wants to be’ like he’s a flake with commitment issues?”</p><p>Brad gives her a look like she’s overthinking this; it betrays an utter lack of comprehension of a woman’s perspective on relationships. The validity of her questions goes over his head.</p><p>“Why does it matter if he has commitment issues?”</p><p>“Relax,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’m not trying to date him, it just says something about his personality. I don’t want to do this with somebody selfish, because if he’s selfish in other areas, he’s probably selfish in bed.”</p><p>“He’s a good passer,” Brad says. “On the field. He always ends the season with more assists than goals.”</p><p>“That’s… not a totally useless testimonial.”</p><p>“I appreciate your approval.”</p><p>Michelle would laugh if his tone weren’t a little too earnest. The way he <em>really</em> wants to impress her can be grating. Well, he’ll soon have his chance to impress her in a situation where she actually wants to be impressed.</p><p>“Get back to work, slacker,” she tells him, returning to her own desk.</p><p>Fifteen minutes later, Brad texts her with three different dates to choose from. Michelle pulls up her calendar, colour-coded with deadlines and days she’ll be working out in the woods. Taking late nights and the need for long showers into account, she picks a date, then leaves her thumb hovering over ‘Send’. She puts her phone down.</p><p>This is where she could still back out. Brad’s mentioned it to his friend, but she’s under no obligation to either of them. Would it be awkward to change her mind and see Brad at work every day? Yes, though she could always say she just wasn’t that serious about it to begin with. Which she wasn’t! For someone who’s soothed by referring to her colour-coded calendar and progressing through life with each forward step carefully considered, tossing out a suggestion to have a threesome was rash.</p><p>Michelle eyes her phone.</p><p>On the other hand, Brad likes her too much to be a dick post-<em>ménage à trois, which, as far as she can see, is sort of an ideal trait in a threesome companion. If she were going to do this. She wheels her chair back and cranes to peer across the room at him. Focused on his screen, he brushes his black hair out of his face with a quick swipe of his hand. Damn, he is nice-looking. The kind of guy Michelle would definitely approach at a bar for a one-night stand if he flashed a smile her way. If picturing him naked intrigues her, then the idea of lying down between him and another muscled body (Brad said soccer, so she’s assuming this friend has an athletic build) while the three of them wind over and under each other like a braid definitely ticks a big ‘YES’ box in her brain. Her hand shoots out for her phone. She hits ‘Send’.</em></p><p>Three bodies which will, in Brad’s words, be coming together. Maybe not what Mary Shelley had in mind, but anticipating this threesome does more for Michelle’s libido than an electrified jigsaw of corpses ever could.</p>
<hr/><p>It’s a different bar, and she’s in different clothes, but otherwise, it’s not a totally foreign way for Michelle and Brad to spend their Friday evening. Provided he shows up. She darted home after work and a loaded glance at Brad, showered, and starred deep into her neglected makeup bag like it was some sort of prophetic tool. <em>Michelle</em>, it said to her, <em>you don’t want lipstick smeared all over your face and eyeshadow fallout stinging your eyes. Leave it at mascara and a whole whack of waterproof eyeliner</em>. She obeyed these wise words with trembling hands, nearly prodding herself in the eye with her mascara wand because, even with a doable task to concentrate on, she was nervous.</p><p>She adjusts her short, black skirt, rocking side-to-side on the stool. For a regular date, it’s the kind of item she would borrow from a friend, but it struck Michelle as incredibly gross to wear a friend’s skirt to a threesome and then return it to them afterwards, so she bought this one online. During work hours. Feeling incredibly furtive, though everybody dabbles in online shopping during lulls in their workload. The skirt was never a normal purchase; she knew it was going to end up right here, right now, between her ass and a barstool. She gulps the end of her whiskey and goes back to cradling the beer that’s been her emotional support as she waits for the guys.</p><p>Arriving ten minutes early has felt like an age—time stretching wretchedly like those clocks in ‘The Scream’—but she finally hears a familiar voice calling her name. Flipping her hair out of the neck of her leather jacket and grabbing her support system, Michelle turns to spot Brad’s face. He smiles and waves, stepping through the crowd that’s building steadily as the after-work drinkers are exchanged for the cutting-loose-for-the-weekend drinkers. When she slips down from the stool, her skirt rides up, and the man who is usually just a co-worker allows himself to notice. His gaze on her bare legs feels good.</p><p>“Sorry we’re late,” he says, though they both know she’s early. But Michelle will take this pleasantry over an implication that she’s overeager.</p><p>Since they were at work together only a few hours ago, she skips small talk.</p><p>“Where’s your…” <em>Friend</em>, she’s going to say. She doesn’t need to.</p><p>Brad—tidy in a partially unbuttoned blue shirt—angles himself towards her side, making room for the woman taking the barstool she vacated, and Michelle sees a man approaching with the two of them as his clear destination. Her first sense of him is filtered through Brad. Once, through Brad’s description, twice, through Brad’s cologne. It may be coming off her friend’s skin, but the scent clings to Peter in her brain. What she’s smelling is the woods, only more expensive somehow, like a perfume company bottled the idea of glamping. Doesn’t matter that the scent doesn’t suit him at all. He walks with his head up, eyes openly excited, and it makes her think of a schoolkid progressing through a museum’s dinosaur exhibit. All he’s missing is a backpack with straps for him to clutch. Letting her gaze skim down from his face, Michelle actually can’t picture him trying to haul on a backpack; his shoulders look broad and strong, even under the incongruous red hoodie he’s wearing.</p><p>“Oh,” he says when he sees her standing next to Brad. Under any other circumstances, she’d be taken aback by his eyes scanning the full length of her body, but she’s going to fuck this stranger tonight and when he looks back up to her face, he’s grinning. “Hey.”</p><p>“Hi,” she replies, more guarded, less forward, until Brad suggests trying to find someplace to sit and Michelle’s able to check Peter out from behind as he leads them away from the bar. Nice butt.</p><p>They snag a coveted corner spot as a small group in business attire is leaving it, settling with Brad between them. Peter makes himself useful by dashing back to the bar and returning with the fingers of one hand twined between the necks of a trio of beers and the fingers of the other slightly dipping into the liquid in a pair of tumblers.</p><p>“I didn’t know what you’d like beyond what you’re already drinking,” he says, jerking his chin towards the beer Michelle finished while he was gone.</p><p>“That’s fine,” she assures him. “I don’t want to be too… I want to be aware of…”</p><p>God, trying to discuss the imminent threesome directly is making her flustered. She has a swig from the new bottle he placed in front of her. Peter leans across Brad and offers his to clink with. Where Brad’s face is aggressively handsome in the heavy line of his eyebrows and the sharp perfection of his teeth, up close, Peter’s is cute and unintimidating.</p><p>“Here’s to being a consenting participant tonight and remembering it tomorrow,” he says.</p><p>Unintimidating, but not uncompelling, especially when he tilts his head back to drink and she can watch the line of his jaw.</p><p>Michelle blushes, but knocks her bottle against his.</p><p>Two rounds deeper for them and one for her, the heat of the bar and the alcohol in her system are getting to her. She winds her way back from the washroom and shrugs out of her jacket before sitting down. Peter manages to get the end of his sentence out, but Brad doesn’t even try to respond as he takes in the low sides of her silky top. Michelle slides closer to him than she was sitting before and puts a hand on his knee as he finally turns his head and stutters out a reply to Peter. Peter looks past him and catches her eye. Her heart’s springing up and down in her chest because she realized, staring at her reflection as she washed her hands, that, if they’re going to do this, somebody’s gotta make a move. Peter, sleeves shoved up, is staring back at her like he’s been thinking the same thing. His hand smooths over Brad’s thigh.</p><p>Under the table, Brad keeps his legs still, his feet flat on the ground. His comfort in his own skin is something Michelle’s always respected. He even succeeds in raising his glass steadily to his lips and taking another drink while Peter runs his hand higher. With a little throat-clearing, Brad parts his thighs further. She doesn’t mean to be, but Michelle’s waiting for Peter to go first. They were talking about something innocuous when he said just enough to imply that he’s never been in a threesome either. Regardless, there’s a confidence in the way he touches Brad. She trails her fingers up Brad’s thigh and Peter locks eyes with her as their gazes cross watching their friend swallow.</p><p>Suddenly, the man between them is a little less present, even with the sharp breath he takes at the moment Peter tucks his hand against his crotch. Michelle rests her hand over his. She feels his skin, lets her fingers slip through his, as Brad gasps and swells beneath Peter’s palm; she can tell—they have to change the curve of their grip to accommodate the erection. Brad’s arm curls around her waist and presses her into his side as her and Peter’s hands move together, stroking through Brad’s pants, rubbing him. He glances at her, heat in his eyes, but she’s looking at Peter again by the time she leans in and kisses Brad’s throat. She draws it out into a lick at the slack way Peter’s mouth is hanging open. Hopefully, the fall of her hair is blocking the necking from the view of other patrons, but that hope is tough to keep in mind when Peter’s tongue appears to wet his lower lip. Like she’s kissing <em>him</em>.</p><p>There’s a squeeze between Michelle’s thighs that has her gripping Peter’s hand more firmly, urging him to jerk Brad off faster. She glances towards Peter’s lap and he lifts his hoodie with his free hand to expose the bulge in the front of his jeans. The scent of her perfume rises as sweat trickles between her breasts. They knead Brad rapidly until he chokes out a plea for them to stop, begging to take this someplace private. She grabs her jacket in one hand and links the fingers of her other through Brad’s. Tugging him to the exit, she trusts Peter to bring up the rear.</p>
<hr/><p>Making out in the back of a rideshare is bad behaviour, so Michelle takes the passenger’s seat when the car pulls up. Because she <em>is</em> feeling the need to go back a step from risky under-the-table handjobs and just kiss someone. And that someone is not the friend she arranged this with. She glances at the sidemirror as they’re passing under a streetlight and Peter’s staring at her. He winks. Slowly, like she’s just looking idly around as they drive, she turns to glance into the backseat. Brad has his arm stretched out along the top the seats and his fingers have dipped into the neck of Peter’s hoodie. Michelle’s pulse accelerates just imagining the warmth of that throat. Scrambling for her phone, she sends Brad a text.</p><p>
  <em>Put your fingers in his mouth.</em>
</p><p>She faces forward again for about a block, prolonging her outward nonchalance even as she hears a vibration, followed by Brad’s soft snort of acknowledgement as he reads her text. She glances around the edge of her seat and sees him act. His hand comes out of the sweatshirt to take Peter by the chin and turn his face towards him. Briefly, he inclines his head towards his friend, speaking too quietly for her to distinguish the words, but Michelle guesses it’s something about her watching because Peter’s gaze jumps to her as he opens his mouth and accepts two of Brad’s fingers. She can see him sucking as Brad withdraws, cheeks flushed. He looks to her—for approval, she thinks, until he holds his wet fingers up and curls them in the air in a highly suggestive motion. Oh shit. Michelle feels herself pressing down on the floor of the car like she’s in the driver’s seat with the accelerator under her foot.</p><p>They’re going to her place where: she’s on home turf, she knows it’s clean, she can go right to sleep after kicking them out. Also, the one luxury of her second-story apartment is the king-size bed her friends seriously, outrageously got on ladders to help her push through the sliding door of her balcony because that was easier than carrying it up the narrow staircase. Tonight, she plans to get some good use out of all those acres of mattress.</p><p>As with the hijinks in the car, she knows both men are watching her as she lets them into the building and then through her front door.</p><p>“Kitchen,” Michelle says, with a loose wave of her hand. “Living room, bathroom. And the bedroom’s at the end of the hall.”</p><p>Brad excuses himself to empty his bladder and/or psych himself up in the mirror above the bathroom sink and she’s wondering how to entertain his friend during these uncertain moments of transition when Peter basically <em>lunges</em> forward and kisses her. She moans into his mouth because it’s sudden but it’s <em>good</em>. His hands go right to her ass and her arms wrap around the back of his neck, holding him against her. With her heels, she has a handful of inches on him, but that doesn’t appear to make him pouty or daunted. It’s less than a minute, probably fewer than thirty seconds (understanding the flow of time is temporarily lost on Michelle), but they separate panting.</p><p>“You can tell Brad to stick his fingers in my mouth all you want,” Peter murmurs, still staring at her lips, “but I’ve got something I wanna to stick places too.”</p><p>“Understood.” She nudges her thigh into his groin.</p><p>“So, you guys aren’t waiting for me, huh?” Brad asks with a tight smile as he walks out of the bathroom to see Peter’s hands on her ass and her pressing back against him.</p><p>This is kind of the idea, all three of them experimenting with each other, but she can tell he’s annoyed that anything went on while he was out of the room. That he’s possibly jealous. Though it doesn’t feel right to move away from Peter, Michelle knows how to rectify this. She strides to Brad and puts her hands lightly on his chest before kissing him, more coyly than Peter kissed her. She lets Brad come down to her as he hunts out what he wants from the kiss. This feels nice too, though it has more of the familiarity of kissing a friend—even though they haven’t touched in this way before—than the bubbling lust that went with kissing Peter. As she continues, tracing her fingers to the center of his chest to stroke his skin and begin undoing his buttons, Peter comes up behind her and helps her out of her jacket. She hears her keys jingle in the pocket and tap against her phone. When his hands sneak through the sides of her shirt to run across the underside of her breasts, Michelle pushes Brad back, back, back, and the three of them stagger to her bedroom.</p><p>She and Brad make out in the dark for a while, and without light, the kissing get rougher, their breathing ragged. Once she has all the buttons of Brad’s shirt undone, she reaches back for Peter and he grips her hand tightly as he grinds his erection against her ass. They’re pressing snugly into her front and back when she thinks of things like being able to locate condoms and ogle muscles—both activities require some light. Michelle squeezes out from between them and turns her bedside lamp on, angling the shade so the light stays low. Turning to check on them, she sees one man standing there with his shirt open and dishevelled and the other rigid in the front of his jeans. Brad’s hard too—she felt it when she stood against him, but his erection’s not visible from where she’s standing now. It’s odd, seeing the space between their bodies and knowing she was just in it. But with Peter rubbing Brad’s dick at the bar and Brad clearly turned on by having Peter suck his fingers on the way here, they’ve been messing around too. Why should they pause to get her back in the middle? Stubborn and curious, Michelle crosses her arms where she stands and gives them an expectant look.</p><p>Peter reacts first; he grabs the back of Brad’s neck and stretches up to kiss him. The instant their mouths meet, Michelle understands the three of them have a problem. Trading off sexual favours, these guys are ok, but being on two sides of the same kiss makes them competitive. Fucking weekend athletes. Countering the dominant neck-grab, Brad bats Peter’s arm away and takes his face in his hands. It’s not sweet, it’s controlling. Peter’s next move is yanking Brad’s body against his by crumpling the open front of his shirt in his fists. Oops, well, alright, Michelle decides. Maybe it’s better to put herself back in the equation.</p><p>Because she has no intention of babying Brad through this experience, when she slips between them, she puts her back to him. Picturing his disappointed face, she raises her arms.</p><p>“Take her shirt off,” Peter interprets, tearing his hoodie over his head in a flurry that peels the t-shirt beneath halfway up his torso.</p><p>It’s evident in his method that Brad isn’t interested in being told what to do with her. He makes sure to drag his hands over her as he takes his time. Maybe he’s being a dick about it—that’s what the narrowing of Peter’s eyes tells her as he stares at Brad around Michelle’s head—but she’s enjoying this. There’s something about having spent so much time with Brad and those hands that has her pressing back against his erection. She’s witnessed him performing countless practical tasks, like driving the stakes for ‘Trail Closed’ signs deep into semi-frozen ground with a sledgehammer to protect new plant growth in the spring, knotting a rope leash around the waist of one of their colleagues as overkill when they wade into a pond to collect a sample, or just his impressive typing speed. (Not as many words per minute as she logs, but still.) He’s only quick when he pushes the material above her breasts and shifts his hands down quickly to cover, then massage them. She can almost hear him internally screaming at Peter that he beat him to this, only she doesn’t care. He’s tugging her nipples now and she shuts her eyes with a sigh.</p><p>“You like that?” he asks into her ear, which is when Peter loses patience for this display and removes her shirt the rest of the way himself.</p><p>Michelle retaliates by dropping her arms and edging his shirt up his stomach while Brad continues to caress her chest, now also kissing her shoulder. Though Peter lets her remove his t-shirt herself, she can add a willingness to get naked quick to the few things she knows about him; he seems like he’d be just as happy to whip all his clothes off at once as go through the foreplay of undressing each other. She remembers what he said to her in the kitchen. He has his own aspirations for tonight and the grin he gives her when she gets his t-shirt off makes her wonder what he wants and how soon she’ll be giving it to him. Michelle can’t feel any part of her resisting. It’s… surprisingly freeing.</p><p>Brad shuffles behind her, slipping out of his shirt, and her heart leaps as his chest presses to her back, skin to skin. Peter makes a grab for her crotch, but she lifts her eyebrows wryly and spins to face Brad instead.</p><p>“<em>This fucking skirt</em>,” she hears Peter mumble behind her as he slides his hands up her thighs to play with the hem.</p><p>It’s not exactly a <em>sexual</em> fantasy she’s fulfilling when she digs her fingers into Brad’s hair and combs it back, but it’s definitely a fantasy. He just has great hair. Sometimes, when she’s bored in a meeting, she’ll look over at him and feel this compulsion to run her fingers through it. She discovers that the strands feel soft and wonderful, so there’s one dream realized.</p><p>As she’s moving the palm of her hand down to cup his cheek, she shifts her head to the side, catching Brad’s eye and nodding back towards Peter.</p><p>“Kiss him nicely,” Michelle instructs.</p><p>Brad’s dark eyes bore into hers for a moment, then he breaks the stare and looks to Peter.</p><p>“Let’s go, Parker.”</p><p>Satisfied, she gets out of the way, circling behind Peter. While he’s partly distracted by the kiss (tamer than last time, by the looks of it), she rests her hands on his waist. Then, Michelle thinks, <em>Screw it</em>, and feels him up all over his chest, shoulders, and stomach, before wending her way down to his hips. His jeans are probably really putting pressure on his erection right now. She’ll help. After flicking the button open, she means to move away, but… plans change. She’s barely dipping the tips of her fingers below the waist of his jeans when Peter pulls away from Brad’s insistent mouth to mutter, “Well, <em>that’s</em> not fair.”</p><p>Instead of continuing, Michelle delights in retreating. Peter’s protesting noise is absorbed by his friend’s lips and she pats his ass before going to tease Brad. First, she guides the hand Peter has on Brad’s shoulder up into his hair so he can share her joy at how touchable it is. Then, she grazes her palms down his back. His friend’s body is dense with muscles, like somebody who goes to the gym a lot, where Brad’s is lean. Their work is a decent split between time indoors and outside, fairly physical, so she knows he has strong legs, good lungs, all the endurance he needs for the days they have to park far from a trailhead or navigate gullies. She forgot to ask what position they each play on their soccer team, but she’ll be concerned with another type of position for the foreseeable future.</p><p>To keep things even, Michelle unbuttons Brad’s pants. He makes a needful sound and goes momentarily loose between her body and Peter’s. This is not the reaction she expected from a man so socially comfortable, who apparently maintains a far better work/life balance (and, presumably, a steadier sex life) than she has lately. These noises, which continue as she works his zipper down against the push of his erection, expose him. He makes himself vulnerable. Something zinging through Michelle’s body compels her to take advantage.</p><p>She and Peter propel Brad’s co-operative body towards the bed. The guys land with a thump and continue kissing; Peter’s fingers form a gun as he angles Brad’s jaw, driving his tongue into his friend’s mouth. Michelle stares at them, breathing hard for having done nothing. Not breaking the kiss, Brad raises a hand to reach for her, but she’s quicker than that, dropping to her knees. She and the band of his underwear get along immediately—it’s easy to uncover his dick and the elastic cradles him instead of trying to snap back into place against his abdomen. Though the access with his pants still on isn’t amazing, she kisses his stomach, then the head of his cock. Up above, Brad moans.</p><p>With a smirk, Michelle repositions a little on her knees and grasps her friend’s thighs. He’s whimpering. He’s full-on whimpering. She leans in and licks slowly up his length. Her heels are already starting to bother her, so she reaches back and tugs them off one at a time. The next thing she means to do is gather her hair out of the way as she shallowly sucks Brad’s erection and strands swing forward, trying to tangle in his open zipper and stick to the saliva she’s coating him in, but Peter’s hand is there first. Still making out with Brad (she can hear it if she can’t see it), he encircles her hair in his grip and rests his fist lightly on her shoulder. Dammit. She’s a soft touch for his soft touch, closing her eyes to the sensation of his knuckles brushing her skin. This stranger is ruining the nice underwear she put on tonight.</p><p>“Please, Michelle, <em>please</em>,” Brad breaks free of Peter’s mouth to say.</p><p>He reaches out to hold her ribs, cup her breasts, but while he and his friend might share the field on Saturdays or whenever, they don’t seem to be on the same team tonight.</p><p>“Nope,” Peter informs him. “I get her next.”</p><p>“None of that possessive shit,” she warns.</p><p>“Can I <em>please</em> have you next?”</p><p>“You must be a real pain for your friends,” Michelle guesses sarcastically, letting him guide her over to his lap instead of Brad’s. (Who’s probably looking sour. She doesn’t know. Her eyes are glued to Peter’s.)</p><p>“No pain, I promise. I’ll be gentle.”</p><p>She rolls her eyes and settles in, straddling him.</p><p>“Oh my—” There is no ‘god’ because he kisses her before she can finish.</p><p>That’s his second annoying offense in <em>seconds</em> and she’s going to let him know. Really, she is. But he’s reminding her that he never let go of her hair by lifting it and slipping his hand against the nape of her neck to caress her skin. Michelle angles her hips and grinds up and down the swell in his jeans. Peter doesn’t mess around stroking her legs and hips, he just darts both hands beneath her skirt and traces the edges of her underwear where they curve around her thighs and narrow between them. She can feel him draw the fabric aside and gasps into his mouth, anticipating his fingers, when Brad tips the both of them over.</p><p>It’s disorienting, but they twist onto their sides and her friend scoots close behind her, so she decides she doesn’t mind.</p><p>“You’re not getting out of this,” Peter speaks quietly against her mouth when she thinks he’s about to kiss her again.</p><p>Michelle finds herself smiling, almost laughing, as he flips her skirt up and elects to take her underwear off. There’s only so much he can do like this, so she takes over, kicking them to the floor. That’s annoying offense number three; those underwear are sexy and she thought she’d be showing them off some before they hit the hardwood. Weirdly, Peter’s disregard only makes her smile broaden.</p><p>“Like I was trying,” she quips.</p><p>“Are we bantering,” Brad checks, “or are we fucking?”</p><p>“Dude, I am so sorry for the people you sleep with. Banter is an important part of the process,” Peter instructs.</p><p>“Fuck you, Parker.”</p><p>“And when you do, I guess I can’t expect any banter. I’ll adjust my expectations.”</p><p>“I’ll adjust your nose with my fist,” Brad responds in a playful tone. Michelle isn’t completely sold and she wavers, sandwiched between the two of them.</p><p>“Cool,” she says, “but actually, I <em>am</em> here to get laid.”</p><p>Two sets of male hands collide where her thighs are pressed together. She takes a deep breath at their enthusiasm, unable to tell whose fingers are skating along the skin just above her pubic hair and whose are subtly attempting to wedge between her legs.</p><p>“After you,” Brad says smoothly.</p><p>“Thanks, man.”</p><p>Her friend’s hands retreat a short distance and Peter insinuates one of his thighs between hers to create some space.</p><p>“This ok?” he checks, sweet face even sweeter horizontal.</p><p>“Be my guest,” Michelle says, copying Brad’s formality and reaching up and back to squeeze his shoulder so he realizes. She gets a kiss on her neck in response.</p><p>Peter’s fingers run slickly through her arousal. It’s a methodical mapping, feeling as though it’s meant to arouse her rather than him, but their eyes meet and he’s wearing an expression like he’s the one being fondled, though his erection cleaves to his abdomen, twitching under his clothes as he fingers her.</p><p>“You’re teasing me,” she points out, pulse jumping at her inner thigh.</p><p>“Am I not supposed to?”</p><p>Michelle tries to rock harder against the pass of his fingers and he moves them away with a grin and a chiding, “Ah!”</p><p>“Just give her what she wants,” is Brad’s disgruntled input.</p><p>She turns to watch as he sits up and undresses from the waist down. He gives her a smile like they’re on the same side, demonstrated by him advocating for her pleasure—something Michelle’s quite comfortable doing on her own. And yet, alright, her friend’s heart <em>is</em> in the right place, and it <em>is</em> difficult to monitor and decipher the fluctuating moods and responses of two other people, and his directive <em>is</em> obeyed. Peter’s fingers return and push through the wetness he helped generate, touching her entrance and gliding inside her, one finger, then two. Michelle groans deep in her throat because <em>finally</em>.</p><p>Brad lies down at her back again and, with Peter working her up, she fumbles behind her and grabs her friend’s ass to encourage him closer. She can feel him hard and hot against her, partly touching her rumpled skirt, partly her skin. He rubs against her and reaches an arm around, greedily squeezing her hip, then sweeping down to feel for her clit.</p><p>She’s sweating between their bodies, breathing hard and shuddering involuntarily when Brad gets his fingers positioned to trap her clit and begin gradually cracking her mind like peanut brittle. Where he’s painstaking, Peter’s exultant. He increases the pace of his fingers until they’re shuttling in and out of her. Michelle grips Brad’s wrist with one hand, Peter’s neck with the other, then switches, then moves both hands, grappling for some constancy that the part of her brain currently squashed beneath her need for satisfaction knows she’s not gonna get. Her hips are writhing in their hands as a clear goal fights its way through the fog of lust: unzip Peter’s jeans. It’s tricky, with the over- and underpass of arms, but she does it and he thanks her with a sloppy kiss that only seems to land on her mouth by miracle.</p><p>“Close,” she gasps.</p><p>Behind her, Brad groans and nips at the base of her neck, making her shake. He’s humping her quickly, pushing with his hips as he pulls back with his fingers on her clit. Good thing Peter hooks his fingers firmly inside her so he doesn’t get jostled off this ride. Good thing too that his curling motion strikes her so, so right. Michelle cries out and comes, his fingers still pumping ruthlessly inside her, Brad pinching her clit, and then coming himself; she feels the jet spurt up her back, probably some on her skirt too.</p><p>Which is why she did not borrow clothes for this threesome.</p><p>Peter’s expression is impish as he tries to keep coaxing her through the pleasure, but she pushes at his chest and he finally takes his hand away.</p><p>“Oh my god,” Michelle sighs, flopping back and half onto Brad.</p><p>“Go team,” her friend pants from beneath her.</p><p>“Yeah. You guys have some kinda cheer you do at your games?”</p><p>“Sometimes we bump chests,” Peter offers, hands suddenly on her boobs.</p><p>She twists, trying to see Brad’s face without lifting up. Her temple makes contact with his chin.</p><p>“Does your friend have an off switch?”</p><p>“If he did, I’d skip that and just pull the plug,” Brad says. He wraps an arm around her and she wiggles until he relaxes the hold, forcing him to make it less territorial.</p><p>“Aww,” Peter says, managing to cup her breasts in a perfunctory way, like he’s pushing them up to prevent under-boob sweat while she cools off post-orgasm, “you guys are bantering. I knew you could do it. Also,” he adds, “I don’t know if anyone happens to be keeping track, <em>but I’m the only one who hasn’t gotten off</em>.”</p><p>“That sucks, man.”</p><p>With effort, Michelle sits up and glares at Brad’s unconcerned face.</p><p>“Don’t be a dick,” she says.</p><p>“Yeah, Brad,” Peter joins in.</p><p>Shaking her head, she puts her back to her friend and checks Peter’s face for her go-ahead. He nods in rapid approval, so she grips the waist of his open jeans and pulls down while he lifts his ass from her bed. Fuck, the three of them never even got under the sheet. Then again, it’s easier to be mobile above it. Plus, it’s an extra layer between her expensive mattress and the fluid drying on her spine.</p><p>Because Peter doesn’t seem like the kinda guy who cares to be undressed layer by layer, Michelle doesn’t striptease herself with taking off his clothes slowly. At some point, he kicked his shoes away, meaning it’s straightforward to yank the boxers and jeans down his legs. Her intention is to remove them completely. He doesn’t seem to have a hell of a lot of regard for her intentions.</p><p>“That’s far enough, I swear,” he says, when she has his jeans around his shins. “I’m good. Nike time. Just do it.”</p><p>“Just do what exactly?” Michelle asks indulgently. She rests a hand on his naked thigh and tries not to stare openly at his dick, red as a slap.</p><p>“Anything. Whatever you want. Brad says you’re multitalented.”</p><p>Brad rolls over lazily to glare at Peter.</p><p>“What the hell, Parker? Don’t make it sound like that.”</p><p>“Like what?”</p><p>“Like I talk about Michelle like that!”</p><p>“I get it,” she says, cutting him off. <em>Please shut up, Peter</em>, she thinks. “You talk to him about work. You appreciate me as a co-worker.”</p><p>“That’s definitely why I’ve heard so much about you,” Peter agrees provokingly. “Because he appreciates you as a co-worker.”</p><p>“You know what?” Brad bites out.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Michelle rolls her eyes and opts to terminate this snippy little back and forth by grasping Peter’s cock and bending over to wrap her lips around the head. That shuts both of them up. Thank <em>god</em>, some fucking peace.</p><p>He emits a deep groan of approval and weaves his fingers into her hair, slightly bucking his hips. As she sinks to take him deeper, she hears another groan—hoarse with an entirely different emotion—coming from Brad. She doesn’t stop. If he has something to say, he can damn well use his words. Michelle clutches the inside of Peter’s muscular thigh and sucks as she starts to withdraw only to plunge him farther into her mouth. Peter’s hand finds hers and tangles their fingers together next to his hip, catching some of the sheet in his grip too. The gesture dizzies her heart.</p><p>While he’s seeing god, Brad’s apparently seeing red, because he taps, then tugs, at her shoulder, until she pulls off of Peter and shoots her friend an impatient look.</p><p>“<em>What</em>?”</p><p>“I’ll do that,” he says, nodding towards Peter’s straining, saliva-slicked erection.</p><p>“Somebody better fucking do it,” Peter says in the tragic tone of an established sufferer. They ignore him for the moment.</p><p>“You want to?” Michelle asks skeptically.</p><p>When Brad averts his eyes from hers, she realizes that, no, he doesn’t want to, he just doesn’t enjoy watching <em>her</em> blow Peter. She wavers, wondering if she should cancel tonight halfway through. Maybe that would be sacrificing what she wants for the self-esteem of these two men, but they’re just so <em>goddamn annoying</em>. They’re supposed to be friends and they’re acting like rivals. Michelle doesn’t owe loyalty to either of them, she’s nobody’s girlfriend, and yet she’s getting the feeling that she needs to pick a side. Even a novice like her can tell this isn’t the way a threesome’s meant to go. If they were worse at this, she might be able to walk away.</p><p>Abruptly, Brad kisses her, then nudges her gently aside as he drops to his elbows to pick up where she left off. Peter draws a fraying breath. Well, either these two aren’t combative enough to present her with an ultimatum, or they just want to get laid as badly as she does. If Brad bites Peter or some shit though, she’s throwing them both out and leaving the necessary medical care in their hands. Michelle will not be responsible for these men and their egos.</p><p>Peter tweaks her fingers, their hands still clasped. She leans in close to observe his heavy breathing and the way his hair’s sticking to his sweaty forehead.</p><p>“I still want you,” he whispers. The words are like static shock, like a finger tracing unexpectedly down her neck. “And you better be quick because I think Brad thinks he’ll get extra points for speed.”</p><p>He gasps, eyes rolling back, and Michelle instinctively cups his neck, running the pad of her thumb along his throat. She doesn’t glance over at Brad; hearing the frantic wet noises paints a sufficiently informative picture.</p><p>“You think you can concentrate while he’s doing that?”</p><p>“Totally.” Immediately, a desperate, guttural croak leaves Peter’s lips.</p><p>“You sure?”</p><p>“No, but I still want to put my tongue inside you and that should count for—<em>uhhh</em>!—something.”</p><p>“Such as?” she asks with a wry smile, straightening her legs out so she can remove her unspeakably defiled skirt.</p><p>“Hell if I know, my concentration was pretty shitty to begin with.”</p><p>“Center yourself,” Michelle says in the calm, instructive tone of a yoga tutorial as she levers herself over his chest and rests her ass lightly on the hard planes of his pecs.</p><p>“Brad,” Peter begs, “cut me some slack for one fucking minute, dude.”</p><p>“One minute, huh?” she teases.</p><p>“Are you doubting me?”</p><p>“Peter Parker, I don’t even know you.”</p><p>But, somehow, she’s beaming down at him as her hair falls around her shoulders. For an instant, he looks completely focused on her and not the sound of Brad switching from giving him head to pumping him in a fist (his version of slack-cutting, evidently). Peter eyes her from her face down to where her legs are spread above his body. Then back to her face.</p><p>“I’d like for you to.”</p><p>Her teasing expression softens. She parts her lips to respond and he wrenches her forward, onto a mouth that opens at once. He licks up into her, then keep his tongue tensed and prods her clit back and forth. Michelle curls into herself, thighs suddenly snug against the sides of his head, fingers locked in his hair.</p><p>This is, perhaps, the single event within the larger experience that sells her on threesomes. Peter’s mouth feels incredible on its own (like he’s fusing the peanut brittle shards of her mind back together again and going too far, melting them into goo), but the intermittent moaning that leaves it due to Brad’s contribution down below means Michelle’s riding something that licks, sucks, and <em>vibrates</em>. She’s a mess. Tilted forward, she’s nearly crying out to plant her hands on the bed and just grind across Peter’s tongue, but the hand not hold hers has her hip in a formidable hold and she can’t reach far enough to be comfortable. Each time she thinks to force her eyes open and check his face to make sure he’s enjoying this as much as she is (and still breathing), Peter’s eyelids are flickering as he absorbs the combined pleasure of taking from Brad and giving to Michelle. She’s shaking and trying not to get too rough with him, smoothing a hand over the hair she’s been practically pulling out at the roots. Peter counters with a quick smack to her ass before seizing her hip again. Fine, she won’t be nice.</p><p>Michelle shifts and rolls her clit against the tip of his nose. It positions her entrance above his wide-open mouth and he slides his tongue thickly back inside her. The sound of him tongue-fucking her is graphic. He loses his rhythm and gets even more aggressive with his mouth—she figures he’s close to release. Peter groans and arches his neck and chin up when he finishes, so she lifts swiftly away, hating to do it, aching and slippery.</p><p>She throws herself off of him, collapsing back onto her elbows with her thighs quivering. Dazedly, she observes Brad hurrying from the room with his lips clamped together (not a swallower then—the things she’s learning about her friend tonight). Peter’s lying there, spent. With her emotions high, their tableau causes her to despair. It’s over. It’s all over. One of them’s too wiped to carry on, the other’s just finished giving oral and won’t want to return just to bring her to orgasm. Michelle lets her head hang back and swipes two fingers over her clit, catching it and adding pressure on the upstroke.</p><p>Peter rolls over like he’s risen from the dead.</p><p>“You don’t—” she begins, but then he’s there, between her quaking knees, suctioning his mouth to her and using his tongue to fiddle around with her clit. His arms are limp and heavy as they hold her thighs down and open. Any energy he has is converted into strokes and twirls, from there into her overwhelmed sobs. Brad walks back in to Michelle yelling, “Peter, <em>fuck</em>!” as she climaxes with her head thrown back and his pressed insistently into her groin by her stiff hand. When Brad comes to sit on the bed, Peter’s leg kicks out and catches him right in the stomach. The kick drives him off the mattress and onto the floor with a thud.</p><p>Michelle scrambles away from Peter, to the edge of the bed, as Brad stands and starts putting his clothes on, his back to her.</p><p>“Are you going?”</p><p>She sees Brad’s shoulders rise and fall as he sighs, but he doesn’t answer her. Once he’s dressed from the waist down, he lifts his shirt from the floor with a swish and slips his arms in as he walks back out of the room. Uh oh. Michelle glances to Peter who appears maddeningly unsurprised. She yanks at the bedsheet until he moves off of it, but touches her wrist as she wraps it hastily around herself to chase after their friend.</p><p>“I’m sorry if I wrecked this for you,” he says.</p><p>“No.” She shakes her head. “He wanted tonight to be something it was never going to be and I thought, when he invited you, that he could handle it, but… I gotta go talk to him.”</p><p>“I think I’m already lucky he didn’t jump up and break my nose, so I better stay here.”</p><p>“Alright.”</p><p>Michelle almost stumbles trying to keep the end of the sheet off the floor, but she gets to Brad while he’s still buttoning his shirt, patting his pockets to check for wallet, phone, keys, maybe the little Swiss Army knife he carries because it always comes in handy eventually.</p><p>“Brad,” she says, cautious in cotton and bare feet.</p><p>He cuts a look at her with his dark eyes.</p><p>“Better not,” he suggests.</p><p>“You’re really leaving?”</p><p>“Do you need me to stay?”</p><p>She hesitates, leaning away from him slightly at the question.</p><p>“Well, it was supposed to be—”</p><p>“No,” he interrupts. “Do <em>you</em> need <em>me</em> to stay?”</p><p>His eyebrow twitches with everything he’s suppressing: hurt, hope, jealousy. Brad’s smart, he knows the answer, but he still ventures forward with grave determination, the way he’d lead a group of their colleagues down a forest deer path that may or may not be crossed with poison ivy. But Michelle is not something for him to sweep clear and overcome.</p><p>“We can only be friends, Brad,” she tells him, straight and honest. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy doing this with you…”</p><p>He grins ironically, giving her a glimpse of his bright, perfect teeth.</p><p>“Please. You two were shutting me out before Parker booted me in the stomach.”</p><p>She doesn’t really have a defense for that. They might have touched Brad, grabbed him, licked and kissed him, but none of that compared to how she felt whenever Peter took her hand. She’s actually a little scared to walk back into her bedroom and face that.</p><p>“He didn’t mean to,” Michelle asserts awkwardly. Brad lifts his eyebrows. “Probably,” she qualifies. He nods tiredly.</p><p>“If he tells you I was a dick to him after our next game…”</p><p>“What makes you think I’ll still be in contact with him then?” Brad gives her a look and she frowns, chastened. “I’ll believe him,” she says instead, “and I won’t blame you.”</p><p>“This sucks,” he admits, smiling tightly at the floor.</p><p>“Can I get you a glass of water for the road? Transit fare?”</p><p>“I’d actually rather get out of here and begin the process of trying to forget what Peter’s dick looks like close up as soon as possible.”</p><p>She says nothing to champion the dick in question. That would be cruel.</p><p>“This was… something I hope we can laugh about someday,” Brad says, and quickly kisses her cheek.</p><p>“I’ll—” they say together.</p><p>“—text you tomorrow.”</p><p>“—see you on Monday,” Michelle says. “Oh. Uh…”</p><p>“Space,” he says, understanding.</p><p>“Probably good for right now.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>When he leaves, she locks the door and bangs her forehead against it. <em>Fuck</em>. She’s going to have to get a new job, isn’t she? Walking in to spot his heartbroken face every day is more than she wants to deal with. Their initiative has a bigger office downtown, not the outpost-like space they work out of. She can apply there. Probably should’ve ages ago, when she started outgrowing the place she’s at. She’ll miss traipsing around outside the city, having to check her legs for ticks, her hair for spiders, and her arms for dead-branch-inflicted scratches deep enough to require infection-preventative measures, but she can buy some fucking plants. Start a garden in her windowsill. Hike on the weekends. Regain some of that thankless grant application time by devoting it to projects more clout will actually allow her to push forward. Be the chooser instead of the beggar.</p><p>Michelle laughs at herself, faintly tipsy and two orgasms deep, standing alone in her entryway in a poor man’s frat party toga.</p><p>She gets herself the glass of water she offered Brad. She pees with her goddamn adult white sheet scrunched up in her lap like a bride’s dress on her wedding day. She strides back to the bedroom and drops the sheet at the door.</p><p>“Hel<em>lo</em>,” Peter says, perking up.</p><p>“Hello yourself.” The man is stark naked and unashamed. “You’ve been, what, chilling?”</p><p>“I also eavesdropped.”</p><p>“You’re a loser.”</p><p>“I’m the loser you haven’t kicked out of your apartment,” he points out. His gaze slips naturally to her chest as she climbs onto the bed on her knees and takes a seat beside his prone body.</p><p>“Why is that?”</p><p>She asks rhetorically, but Peter either doesn’t pick up on that or ignores it. She kinda likes that about him. Where Brad tries so hard with her, Peter leaves her room to try a little too.</p><p>“You like me.”</p><p>“Unfortunately, that is possible.”</p><p>“Unfortunately? Give me back those orgasms I gave you then,” he demands.</p><p>“<em>Orgasm</em>,” Michelle corrects, emphasizing the singular. “The first one was assisted. You can’t take full credit.”</p><p>“Bullshit.”</p><p>She shakes her head but Peter grabs the back of her knee, pulling her forward, stretching her out, until she’s on her back, laughing, and he’s hovering over her, inches from a kiss that she really, really wants to receive. <em>Strange</em>.</p><p>“Is not,” she tells him flatly.</p><p>“Then I’m earning that plural.”</p><p>“Oh yeah?”</p><p>Instead of kissing her or lowering himself down onto her or otherwise touching her in any way at all, Peter leaves. Michelle sits up and looks after him, baffled.</p><p>“Where are your washcloths?” he shouts from the bathroom 30 seconds later. A laugh bursts out of her.</p><p>“Tall cabinet next to the shower!”</p><p>She listens to him running water in the sink. Laughs again when he returns at a <em>run</em>.</p><p>“Flip over!” Peter says wildly.</p><p>“What the fuck is wrong with you?”</p><p>“Come on, while it’s still hot. It’ll feel nicer.”</p><p>Michelle rolls her eyes and maneuvers onto her stomach. He washes her back with the warm cloth. He <em>washes her back</em>. She folds her arms under her head and pillows her cheek on them, candidly observing him. In a practical sense, Peter’s wiping away what Brad left behind, and buying himself time to get hard again, she’s certain. But it doesn’t all feel like practicality. Not when every pass of the cloth is so careful, or when Peter makes another sprinted trip to the bathroom to heat it up for her, or when he’s lying down alongside her by the end, beginning to lightly kiss her clean skin.</p><p>“I don’t understand you,” she hears herself confess.</p><p>“I’m an enigma,” he agrees. Michelle snorts.</p><p>“I do like you though.”</p><p>“Called it.”</p><p>He chucks the damp, cooling washcloth over the side of her bed and she glares at him.</p><p>“This room has wood floors. Which I pay for. As a feature of this apartment.”</p><p>“It’s not on the floor, it’s on my jeans.”</p><p>“So, it’s soaking into your jeans right now? That’s convenient for you.”</p><p>“Is it?” Peter asks vaguely. His hand is rubbing back and forth very low on her back.</p><p>“I’m assuming you’re not planning to get back into wet jeans tonight and make your way home.”</p><p>“I would if you asked me to,” he swears, giving her puppy-dog eyes.</p><p>“Are you forcing me to say this out loud?”</p><p>A winning smile. She sighs in exasperation and turns onto her side, propping her head up with her hand.</p><p>“Peter, would you like to stay over?”</p><p>“Do you want that?”</p><p>“You’re a <em>pain</em>,” she says for the second time. Peter continues smiling, waiting. Michelle takes a deep breath and keeps her eyes on his, not letting her gaze drift around the apartment that is nice but lonely, tranquil but lifeless. It has life with this surprising person in it. “I want that.”</p><p>He shuffles close to her with a grin.</p><p>“<em>I</em> want that,” he says, brushing his lips across hers.</p><p>“<em>Mmm</em>,” Michelle agrees. Her eyelids fall. She parts her lips for his tongue. His hand fits into the curve of her waist and slips over to touch her back. His thickening erection nudges her mons, then her abdomen as he swells against her. Her moan skips and drags and Peter clutches at her more purposefully, tipping her onto her back.</p><p>“Condom,” she remembers, and points him to the box tucked out of sight. Discrete for the fact that she bought it for use in a threesome with a work friend and a total stranger.</p><p>Peter holds up her copy of <em>Frankenstein</em>, resting beneath the box.</p><p>“You a fan?” he asks, returning it to its place and tearing open the wrapper on the condom.</p><p>“I’ve read it twice, but I think I prefer <em>Dracula</em>.”</p><p>“Aw, I’m a wolfman guy,” Peter offers. He puts the condom on like it’s a sock or a baseball cap; there’s definite familiarity there. And Michelle doesn’t care. “Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster are creepy, sure, but the wolfman is two different people: the regular guy and then this creature in the shadows during the full moon. I don’t know, I think there’s something really cool about that. You ever watch the old Lon Chaney movies?”</p><p>Ok, she more than likes him. She likes him quite a lot. Smiling, Michelle shakes her head.</p><p>“Well,” he says, but he stops talking then. There’s a depth to the look in his eyes as he gazes at her. She lets him in and stands as horizontal witness to his existence in blinks and breaths and the pound of his heart she can almost feel from here.</p><p>“Why don’t you get the light?”</p><p><em>Click</em>.</p><p>In the dark, it’s less of a performance, not that Peter doesn’t <em>clearly</em> intend to perform. Michelle’s eyes rest without the light and she breathes deeply as Peter comes over her and kisses her neck. Her eyes are still adjusting while he takes a meandering route down her chest, pressing his mouth harder against her breasts. He licks across her nipple; she scratches her nails up the back of his neck and into his hair. When she lets out the smallest huffing sound of enjoyment, he cups his hand between her thighs, skates a finger along her entrance. As if she wouldn’t be wet. As if the foreplay didn’t start the minute he walked back in with that warm cloth and draped it across her back.</p><p>“Any specific requests?” he asks, lifting his head from her chest. She can see his face now. Enough light gets in around the edges of her blinds. She runs her fingers through his loosely curling hair, then arches her body up against his.</p><p>“Don’t be gentle.”</p><p>Michelle feels the eager tremor of his hand against her inner thigh as he lines himself up and eases inside her. His breathing catches. She tilts her hips and raises her knees from the bed, urging him in, farther, all the way. Peter withdraws and she’s assuming he’ll build up to what she asked for, but he slams back in. Though she clenches her teeth around the sensation of him filling her so hard and so well, a whine escapes.</p><p>“You’ve been waiting for this,” she acknowledges, accuses, admires.</p><p>He pauses, hands planted to either side of her on the bed.</p><p>“Like I said, I’ve heard a lot about you. I’ve been waiting for this since I convinced Brad to tell me your name.”</p><p>She wants to think and hide and hold him close, but she can reflect later. He seems to agree. Peter’s thrusts are rough and rhythmic. Pounding into her like a machine one minute, he’ll be playfully grabbing her wrists and licking her neck the next. When she tightens her legs around him, he lets her change their positions, only to haul her beneath him again—on her stomach this time—as he rocks in and out and wedges his hand under her to rub her clit. They chase each other across her mattress and Michelle comes clawing at her pillow, invigorated by the certainty that this is the best time she’s ever had in bed. Peter bites her earlobe as he snatches one of her scrabbling hands and spills into the condom.</p><p>He doesn’t help her remake her bed with clean sheets because he claims to be “bad at it.” She’s debating the potential truth of that when he returns with a bowl of popcorn after leaving her alone to do it herself, joins in, and somehow puts a lavender pillowcase on inside out. Michelle sets it right with a laugh and they get back in bed together, popcorn and her laptop playing <em>Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man</em> between them.</p><p>She slips away to shower after Peter falls asleep with his head on her lap. When she gets back, she quietly removes the bowl and the laptop. The bed’s a king—she’s used to her space and she doesn’t need to sleep close to him—but Michelle squirms into the warmth his body radiates. He stirs enough to breathe in the scent of her hair, kiss her forehead, and thrust his hand into hers. Confused by the gesture, she frowns at his face, with its softly closed eyes.</p><p>“By the way,” Peter mumbles, shaking her hand, “nice to meet you.”</p><p>Michelle smiles and pats his arm as he drops it over her, instinctively pulling her close.</p>
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